


Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

by Emjen_Enla



Series: Prompted Works [43]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Drug Abuse, Gen, Late at Night, Laudanum, Pre-Season/Series 05, Sleep Deprivation, Under a Bridge, mentioned hallucinations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26290150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: “You look tired,” Jessie Eden says. Or Tommy and Jessie have a late night business meeting.Written for Peaky Blinders Appreciation Week Day 5: Business.
Relationships: Background, Grace Burgess/Tommy Shelby, Jessie Eden & Tommy Shelby, Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark
Series: Prompted Works [43]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1366669
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the connection to the prompt is a bit tenuous, but I love the dynamic Tommy and Jessie have and wanted to write something with them in it.
> 
> Title from "Skinny Love" by Birdy.

“You look tired,” Jessie Eden says.

Tommy tries not to jump, tries not to give away that he’d sort of forgotten she’s there, which is ridiculous because why else would he be under this bridge? Years ago, there would have been any number of reasons for him to be under a bridge looking out over the Thames in the middle of the fucking night, but there are considerably fewer of them these days. This is just not the sort of thing MPs do.

Still, Jessie had some kind of meeting with other leading communists tonight and they’d planned to meet while she was in London. There’s no real reason why. Tommy hasn’t reported on Jessie’s communist friends in months, instead fending off Intelligence with a series of excuses which are probably getting very transparent on him. He and Jessie haven’t fucked in years. There’s no other reason for him to be here, but for some reason he is anyway.

“Thomas,” Jessie prods.

“I’m fine,” he says. He’s not fine. On some level he’s aware of this. He didn’t sleep last night or the night before that and he’s so exhausted he wants to sink down onto the damp cobblestones and cease to exist. He has a perpetual headache which makes it difficult to think and his stomach is always upset which makes it difficult to eat. The laudanum helps with those two a little, at least.

Though he doesn’t want to admit it, the laudanum is probably getting to be another issue. It wasn’t to start with. To start with it was a prescription from the fancy London doctor Ada had dragged him to—he’s still not sure that was worth all the fuss, he’s had migraines for fucking years, albeit they had been on something of an accelerating frequency of late. Anyway, he’d been prescribed the laudanum for migraines and maybe he started taking it a bit more often than strictly necessary once he figured out it helped him sleep and one thing lead to another from there. He knows he should be worried and that he should cut back, but his brain is not a fun place to be these days and he’s tired and the laudanum makes things softer and quieter and sometimes if he takes enough Grace comes to visit him and that’s nice because he misses her.

Jessie is talking again but he’s not really paying attention to what she’s saying. It doesn’t really matter now that he’s not reporting on her, anyway. He has no idea why he stopped save that it got to the point where doing it made him physically sick. He tries not to think about that much because he’d thought the Tommy Shelby who cared about anything that much was dead in France.

He lights a cigarette for something to do with his hands. Meetings with Jessie are awkward these days; he’s never quite clear on what he’s trying to accomplish. Is he trying to accomplish anything? Maybe he just doesn’t want to be alone, which is yet another thing he tries not to think about too closely. He wants to see Grace and he wants to sleep, both of which he needs to be back in his apartment for. Taking the laudanum while out and about is a horrible idea. No one can ever know. Fortunately, he sustained an opium habit for years with no one but John being the wiser. He can do this too. Yes, Ada has been a bit worried of late, but he just needs to make sure he acts even more normal around her to compensate. It will be fine.

“Thomas,” Jessie touches his arm and this time he does finch, not visibly, but since she’d touching him she can probably feel it. He doesn’t remember the last time someone touched him. He and Lizzie had a fight the last time he was in Birmingham, Charlie’s always angry at him for something and Ruby has never come near him unless coaxed. Probably the last person to touch him was Ada but he has no idea when that was. He’s pretty sure Grace doesn’t count, because he’s not so far gone that he doesn’t remember that she’s dead.

“What?” he asks.

“You’re not paying attention,” she says. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” he takes a drag from his cigarette mostly in an attempt at normalcy.

Jessie shakes her head. “I don’t know where your head is tonight, but it’s not where it needs to be for business. Go home and get some sleep.”

He wouldn’t usually be alright with those kind of instructions, but he doesn’t want to be here and it looks like Jessie has made up her mind to end their rendezvous anyway. He says goodnight and drags his heavy body back to his car lured by promises of laudanum and sleep and Grace. He is very, very tired.

But, of course, that is nothing new.


End file.
